Frugal install of android next to frugal installs of Puppy and DebianDog

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mouldy
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Frugal install of android next to frugal installs of Puppy and DebianDog

Post by mouldy »

Ok, on my latest converted chromebook a HP 14-SMB, found out Waydroid just didnt want to get me to android desktop. No idea why cause I have managed it on weaker laptops. But anyway It has a celeron 2955U processor and 4GB RAM. This is first computer with SSE4.2 that I havent gotten Waydroid to work installed in BookwormDog. All 64bit android requires processor that supports SSE4.2 instructions, this is most in last ten to fifteen years. AMD processors were bit late to the game, so any not supporting SSE4.2 are limited to 32bit android. Just a heads up. The celeron 2955U is fast enough and does SSE4.2 but still doesnt work.

So since I have been harping on that ITSFOSS article for installing PrimeOS frugally to boot from folder decided to try it on this laptop and write a Puppy oriented instruction here. This laptop has frugal install of both BookwormPup64 and BookwormDog64(with waydroid) and GRUB2 installed by BookwormPup. I will mention the menuentry given in the article DID NOT WORK in the BookwormPup installed GRUB2. Oh my, :oops: sorry about that, though it might with some tweaking, but that is one crazy complex menuentry. But I had experimented installing the Android-x86 RPM converted to DEB with alien. It basically automagically does same thing frugally installing Android-x86 as the article installing PrimeOS. Well the automated script not going to work with Puppy installed GRUB2, its meant for full GRUB2 the bigger distributions use. But the menuentry it created did work when added to grub.cfg in Puppy's GRUB2. Get to that in a bit.

So first you download the iso you want to use, Android-x86, BlissOS, or PrimeOS.

For Android-x86 https://www.fosshub.com/Android-x86.html
For BlissOS https://sourceforge.net/projects/blisso ... /Official/
For PrimeOS https://www.primeos.in/download/

This works same for all three of these iso. But for argument lets say you want to install PrimeOS (a good first choice by the way, it has the friendliest android desktop for x86 computer) though both PrimeOS and BlissOS are android 11 and Android-x86 is android 9. These things change so could be newer versions, most likely see it with BlissOS first. Ok on my laptop with its 32GB eMMC, I have live/changes directories for BookwormDog and a puppies directory for frugal pups. Next to these create a new directory and call it PrimeOS. Inside this directory create an empty folder and name it data. Click on the iso file. Do you want to mount it, well yes. So it opens and you see folders and files.

You want to move four files to the PrimeOS directory created earlier: initrd.img, install.img, kernel, and system.sfs

So now the contents of your PrimeOS directory are data, initrd.img, install.img, kernel, and system.sfs.

So now to Puppy installed GRUB2

Open grub.cfg (in the small fat32 boot partition). and add:

menuentry "PrimeOS"{
search --set=root --file /PrimeOS/kernel
linux /PrimeOS/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0
initrd /PrimeOS/initrd.img
}

Now reboot your computer and GRUB menu will now offer "PrimeOS" as an option. Click on it and you are on your way to the PrimeOS desktop. This works the same if you start with a BlissOS iso or an Android-x86 iso. Course you would want to probably create directory called BlissOS or Android-x86 instead of PrimeOS. And yes just like you can have a whole litter of Pups, you can have all three android if you want, you just would need three directories and three menuentries.

This is the stupid easy way to have android without extra partitions or android installers (those are not the friendliest) or whatever, though you do have to leave Puppy or Dog or whatever linux you are using, and boot into android. With Waydroid you can toggle between linux and android. But this is STUPID SIMPLE and Waydroid isnt. And since for me this was all about running latest Kindle4Android, well yes it will run in these three, runs better in PrimeOS or BlissOS.

And downside some android apps sniff for a wifi connection. This is not a concern in Waydroid as it has its own methods to force the apps to use whatever the linux internet connection is and not complain. Not in these stand alone versions android. If you use wifi, no problem. If you use anything else be prepared for hassle. Since I mostly use EasyTether for my internet (there is an android tablet version Easytether to tether android tablet to a phone), to use kindle app in these stand alone android, I had to either do a dummy wifi connection to hotspot created on another computer or from a router not connected to internet. You do the dummy connection and your real connection whether phone tethering or ethernet or whatever, THEN start the Kindle app. Dont start the Kindle app before establishing an internet connection and dummy connection. Kindle is not alone, lot other android apps for whatever unknown reason sniff for either wifi or direct cell connection, like if they were installed on a phone. Yea makes no sense to me, I mean why pre-determine if there is a connection, try and if you dont find one, THEN complain. This testing for a connection stuff is stupid.

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Re: Frugal install of android next to frugal installs of Puppy and DebianDog

Post by mouldy »

Just noticed, BlissOS is upto android 13 now though considered beta. Their android 11 and android 12 are considered stable.

PrimeOS still android 11

Android-x86 still android 9

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